Misused psychological and psychiatric terms
Scott Lilienfeld, a psychologist at
Frontiers | Fifty psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid: a list of inaccurate, misleading, misused, ambiguous, and logically confused words and phrases
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01100/full
Lilienfeld et al. provide a tentative alphabetical list of things to avoid, or use sparingly, with clear caveats in talking about psychology. I picked up 20 of them below, but there are some words that are used differently in the Japanese-speaking world and the English-speaking world.
◆ 1: 'A gene for (○○ gene)'
According to Lilienfeldt, the press tends to report that they have found 'genes' for personality traits, mental illness, homosexuality, etc. For example, there seems to be a headline such as 'Scientists have discovered a liberal gene that makes it easy to become liberal.' However, there are no genes that guide traits such as behavioral expression, and studies of psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder suggest that there are probably very few genes that have a large impact on these. that's right.
◆ 2: 'Antidepressant medication'
Also translated as antidepressants, antidepressants such as tricyclics, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and selective serotonin norepinephrine (SNRIs) are associated with anxiety-related and obsessive-compulsive disorders. , there is little evidence that it is more effective in treating mood disorders than bulimia nervosa. Therefore, the specificity of antidepressants for depression remains questionable, and it seems that the name derives from historical precedent rather than scientific evidence. Some researchers call these drugs 'antidepressants' because they are much less effective than commonly claimed, effective only for severe depression and not for mild or moderate depression. Some argue that the label is misleading.
◆ 3: 'Autism epidemic'
Literally translated, the “autism epidemic” refers to a condition in which the incidence and prevalence of autism (autism spectrum disorder) has increased significantly over the past 25 years. It seems that vaccines, TV viewing, food allergies, antibiotics, viruses, etc. are assumed to be the cause of the 'epidemic', but it is doubtful whether it reflects the true number of the increasing trend. If rates of autism are increasing, the increase appears to be modest at best and cannot justify broadly claiming an 'epidemic', Lilienfeld et al. said
◆ 4: 'Brain region X lights up'
Many researchers seem to use the expression ``the region X of the brain glows'', but it is just coloring the brain image in an easy-to-understand manner, and it does not actually glow. Nevertheless, it may give the reader the impression of being 'luminous'. These colors reflect the raw levels of neural activation in response to certain experimental manipulations, as they reflect only neuronal oxygen uptake, not neural activity per se. Lilienfeldt and others point out that this is not the case. It seems that there is a possibility that the area that shines in the brain scan is actually suppressed rather than excited, so it may be 'light down' instead of 'light up'.
◆ 5: 'Brainwashing'
According to Lilienfeld, the term 'brainwashing' was born during the Korean War and is still used uncritically today. However, the technique used by the so-called 'brainwasher' seems to be the same as general persuasion methods such as 'encouraging participation in a certain goal' and 'increasing the reliability of information sources'.
◆ 6: 'Bystander apathy'
Many horses gather in an emergency such as a fire, but since many of them do not perform rescue activities, research results such as ``The more people who are present in an emergency, the less likely they are to be rescued.'' is shown. These are called ``indifference of bystanders'', but it seems that research results that are difficult to say that they are indifferent are shown.
In one study, it is normal for many people to be worried about the victim, rather than being indifferent. However, psychological processes such as the responsibility issue, the fear that one's actions might look foolish, and the group psychology of '
◆ 7: 'Chemical imbalance'
It occurs when there is too little or too much of certain neurotransmitters in the brain, and there are claims that this imbalance causes mental illness. However, Lilienfeld and others commented, 'Thanks to the success of consumer marketing campaigns by pharmaceutical companies.' There is no known 'optimal' level of neurotransmitters in the brain, and there is no evidence that there is an optimal ratio of neurotransmitters, so it is unclear what 'imbalance' means. That's it.
◆ 8: 'Family genetic studies'
The term family genetic study contains the wrong meaning that symptoms such as panic disorder and depression are more likely to be caused by genes than by the environment. In addition, it seems that there is also a misunderstanding that the influence of genes and the influence of the environment can be separated.
◆ 9: 'Genetically determined'
According to Lilienfeldt, psychological abilities are rarely genetically determined, and are only slightly influenced at best. Even schizophrenia, the most heritable of the mental disorders, has an estimated heritability of 70-90% and is open to environmental uncertainty. It has been pointed out that the heritability of most personality traits, such as neuroticism and extroversion, is between 30% and 60%.
◆ 10: 'God spot'
The finding that religious ideas in humans are associated with the activation of specific brain regions, such as the peripheral region of the temporal lobe, has led some media and academics to say, 'We have discovered a divine region in the human brain.' It is said that he is referring to it. However, given that complex psychological abilities, including religious ideas, are almost certainly distributed across multiple brain regions, such representations are scientifically questionable, Lilienfeldt et al. .
◆ 11: 'Gold standard'
Although this term refers to the best standard among various types of psychological evaluation, there are few real gold standards. Lilienfeld and colleagues point out that basically all metrics, even those with high validity, are inevitably error-prone as indicators.
◆ 12: 'Hard-wired'
Research results have been reported that some of the psychological characteristics of humans are innate, such as men being more sensitive to negative news than women. However, except for innate reflexes, it seems that very few human psychological abilities are truly hardwired, that is, those in which psychology and behavior are strongly connected.
◆ 13: 'Hypnotic trance'
Many people imagine a trance-induced hypnotic state in which someone forces them into another state of mind and forces them to do things against their will that they would not normally do. There is little evidence that 'hypnosis' is a qualitatively different state from awakened consciousness.
◆ 14: 'Influence of A on X (A's influence on X)'
A includes gender, social class, education, ethnicity, depression, extroversion, intelligence, etc., and the idea that these conditions influence the behavior and psychological characteristics of something. However, Lilienfeld and colleagues said that experiments to examine the differences between these 'A's are almost always performed in unnatural environments and must be used with extreme caution.
◆ 15: 'Lie detector test'
``Arguably the most
◆ 16: 'Love molecule'
Some people call the hormone oxytocin the 'love molecule,' while others call it the 'trust molecule,' the 'cuddle hormone,' and the 'morality molecule.' However, oxytocin is generally a good thing, as it suggests that it makes individuals more sensitive to both positive and negative information, and may increase the propensity for intimate partner violence. That view is wrong.
◆ 17: 'Multiple personality disorder'
A term that was removed from the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual more than 20 years ago, and as of 2022 is called 'dissociative identity disorder.'
◆ 18: 'Neural signature'
The term was mentioned by researchers who observed that adherence to social norms was associated with activation of specific brain regions. Some also refer to neural signals that indicate psychiatric disorders such as anorexia nervosa and autism. However, as of 2022, it has not reached the point of pinpointing such signals.
◆ 19: 'No difference between groups'
Many researchers say that there was no difference between groups after reporting differences between groups that did not reach the conventional level of statistical significance. Similarly, report 'no significant difference between variables' if the correlation between the two variables is not significant. However, failure to reject the null hypothesis does not technically confirm the null hypothesis. Instead, Lilienfeld and others recommended writing ``no significant difference between groups'' and ``no significant correlation between variables''.
◆ 20: 'Objective personality test'
Many researchers call paper and pencil personality measurement tests 'objective tests' and contrast them with 'subjective tests' that look at responses to interviews and stimuli. However, the former often requires considerable subjective judgment depending on the question. For example, the item 'I have a lot of headaches' can be interpreted in various ways depending on the person due to the ambiguity of the meanings of 'a lot' and 'headache'.
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